On Sunday we went to the late service. Our minister was not preaching: his mother is deathly ill, and was (appropriately) at her bedside. So the master of Knox spoke. looking particularly at Tabatha, and Peter, and putting onto them a feminist and queer theology that God allows us all to minister, and we should be free. Which was roundly rejected by the boys: the saw through the religious language (and his Anglican garb: he was wearing a chasuble in a Presbyterian Church) to the crappy theology behind this. Sons were disappointed, as the usual minister is superb and biblical.
I am aware that Knox is challenged. The halls of residence are being confronted by the vice chancellor, who sees the traditions as outmoded: the building requires strengthening as it was built well before we had good earthquake engineering, and the Presbyterians, who used Knox as a theological college, now have a school of ministry now works primarily by distance learning. But an accommodation to the gnostic spirit of this age is foolish. For persecution is coming.
Now, I really pray we do not face this. I like the Internet. I like the fact that I can get the lectionary online. I appreciate that I can read sermons and access libraries. A fair amount of the work I do requires computers — I can work out standard deviations, and confidence intervals for mean differences by hand, but a spreadsheet is such a useful tool. I am grateful that I can worship freely, and that my ministers leave the church for family reasons, not in fear of their lives. But Christ was persecuted by the authorities. That makes it normative, and accommodation with the authorities crappy theology.
1Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. 2They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.” 3Then Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered, “You say so.” 4Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” 5But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.”
6When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. 7And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 8When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. 9He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. 11Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. 12That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.
I have no doubt that we will be shunned. We will be challenged. We will become less popular. That being Christian will, again, be unpopular. Our society, our elite, has rejected the power behind true religion. They have kept the form while turning their back on the living God.
To their peril.
The trouble is that their policies have consequences. We are on the track toward the destruction of the progressive project under a weight of debt: we need to pray that we will be spared from trial by the hand of God, and that our time does not remain normative. Because we confront the elite overmuch — to the point where political enemies find themselves as friends. If Pilate, the Roman could become friends with Herod (who was a client of his political enemies back in Rome) we should not be shocked when the leftist activists ally with the Islamists (in the full knowledge that under Sharia they would all be hung if lucky, stoned if not) to oppose the church.
For they ascribe our presence as offensive, and our speech as hateful. Having a crappy theology of compromise will not help. The cells can always accept another person. For they know that the Western Endgame will either destroy the church, or the church will restore the West. Pray it is, as it has in other eras, been the church that restores.
